Transgender Voice: Vocal
Feminization

“The sound of your voice will trump your words, nowhere more than on the telephone...”

The Three Essentials of Feminine Voice

Pitch: using
a relatively higher pitch, so that as you speak, you feel a concentration
of vibration primarily in your face, not primarily in your throat
(if you feel the concentration of vibration in the throat, you
know that's too low)

Resonance Tract Adjustment: using
muscles in your throat to raise your voice box and to narrow the throat;
this makes a shorter, smaller vocal tract which amplifies the higher
overtones; this is the crux of getting that decisively feminine ring
or quality to the voice

Generous mouth opening: letting
your jaw drop freely, or generously, as you talk, rather than using
a more closed-mouth style of jaw movement (which sounds male); this
literally gives the voice more musical texture, downplays nasality
by emphasizing orality, and will cause that slight feminine elongation
to vowels

Above photo: Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant, both playing reporters in the classic 1940 Columbia Pictures His Girl Friday.

The most important thing: that your voice makes
feminine music, not masculine music...

Far more important than the words you use, is the sound
of your voice. To sound feminine, you don’t need
to use a lot of adverbs or to favor using some words over other
words—as some coaches may advise. Using adverbs like “really” and “very” frequently
on the phone will not convey woman to the listener... but
the musicality of feminine voice will convey woman to the
listener. The sound of your voice will trump your words, nowhere
more than on the telephone.

You can learn to use feminine voice behaviors
so that your voice is feminine and matches who you are.

At her first appointment, one transwomen client said:
“My biggest anxiety about working on feminine voice is that
I will sound effeminate rather than feminine.” Barbie
Scott helps transwomen to find their authentic—not affected—feminine
voices. Ms. Scott teaches the three most important feminine voice
behaviors, the essentials of feminine voice.

Initial voice ratings by transwomen clients
about their voices before they begin coaching with Ms. Scott usually
are 2s and 3s on scale of 1-10, 1 being worst, 10 being best. Their
final voice ratings about their own voices are 8s and 9s.

Transgender clients have said...

Before
voice coaching: “I would rather sound masculine than
fake.”
After voice coaching: “In the past [pre-voice
coaching] I used to be ‘sir-ed’ on the phone even though
I would give my [exclusively feminine] name up front. Now that never happens.”

After
learning to use the feminine voice behavior of generous
jaw falling, one client said: “I like how it sounds...it has
more melody—this has been awesome! ...this makes talking more
fun—it adds expression and personality.”

One
client offered: “I do feel more feminine when I use
the feminine voice behaviors.”

After
hearing the very first recording of her voice followed
by hearing her now feminine voice, a client said: ”Wow! Big
difference!”

Yet
another client said after hearing her “before” and “after” recordings:
“It’s a wonderful difference.”

A
client hearing her voice-in-progress on recording: “It
does sound feminine when I listen to it.”

“I
love the sound of it when I get it right.” The
same client who said this phoned me (Barbie) a couple of years after
completing voice coaching with me. I answered the phone, and
upon hearing her say, “Hi, Barbie,” I couldn’t
identify what woman it was who phoned me, but I definitely heard “woman.”